Dark vs. Light

Green Lantern #51

Hal Jordan has allowed himself to be possessed by Parallax again, to give everyone a chance to take out the Black Lantern version of the Spectre. Parallax dives down into the Spectre’s giant body to track down the real Spectre hidden within and imprisoned by the real Black Lantern ring. He severs the ring’s connection to the Spectre, freeing the Spirit of God’s Vengeance, but Parallax isn’t ready to give up Hal’s body yet, and he wants to try to kill the Spectre once and for all. Atrocitus briefly inducts the Spectre into the Red Lantern Corps before the Spectre and Carol Ferris break Hal free of Parallax. So in a straight up battle between the Spirit of God’s Vengeance and Nekron, the undead god behind the entire Blackest Night, the contest has to go to the dude in the green cape who works for God, right? Right?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Plenty of fun stuff here, great battles, all the stuff we’ve been accustomed to in the main “Blackest Night” books — and best of all is Doug Mahnke’s incredible, beautiful, disgusting artwork. From Parallax’s tour around the zombie Spectre’s rotting innards to Lex Luthor and Larfleez battling over the Orange Lantern to Parallax tearing the Spectre’s face off to Black Hand’s entirely unwholesome expression of pure bliss, this is a work of absolute magnificance.

Tiny Titans #25

And on the other end of the spectrum, we have the awesomely happy “Tiny Titans.” DC’s busiest writer, Geoff Johns, shares writing duties on this one and even makes a guest appearance inside. It’s the first appearance of Conner Kent as Superboy in the TinyTitansverse, as well as Match, Conner’s stinky bizarro-clone. I was also fairly gleeful to see another new addition to the cast — Stargirl from the various JSA comics.

Maybe this means we’ll start seeing some of the other JSA kids hanging around the treehouse, too.

Anyway, Speedy trades in a bunch of old junk at the pawn shop for a wad of bubble gum, and when Starfire and Stargirl pick up a bunch of multi-colored rings to share with their friends, they all get a big surprise:

The whole spectrum of power ring corps, all rendered in Tiny Titans awesomeness. I kinda saw that coming, but I also kinda didn’t see it coming, and that makes the whole thing even cooler.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fun, fun, fun stuff. It’s great for kids, and it’s great for grownups, too. If you’re not picking this one up, you should be.